Have You Had Your Staph Today?

Last year, I watched Food, Inc., and it changed a lot of the way I view not only food, but politics. I think I need a refresher. The movie helps you to bridge the gap between farm and plate. It connects you with knowledge to the origin of your food, and it ain’t pretty. The food industry is big business, and a small number of companies have a tight hold on their markets. That has to be why the use of antibiotics and its potential contribution to antibiotic resistance has not been properly addressed. Well, it seems that MAYBE the issue is getting more attention. See below from ASHP Daily Briefing:

The Los Angeles Times (4/25, Adams) reports that, according to a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Staphylococcus aureus bacteria was found “on 47% of 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey from 26 grocery stores in five US cities” and that “of those bacteria, 96% were resistant to at least one type of antibiotic and more than half were resistant to at least three.” Lance Price at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona, and colleagues, “concluded that the resistant staph on meat was probably coming from the animals – and not, say, a worker’s unclean hands. This seems to point the finger at antibiotic use in agriculture.” The Los Angeles Times notes, “calls for restrictions, particularly on antibiotics used to combat human infectious disease, have come from a slew of organizations, including the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Assn and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Yet the practice remains.”